Page 9 - Kazakh Outlook 2025

prices.
Kazakhstan has been actively developing its international trade transit potential amid the ongoing war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia. In the first 11 months of 2024, cargo volume along the Middle Corridor (also known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route or TITR) rose by 63% year on year, reaching 4.1mn tonnes, with projections of 10mn tonnes per year (tpy) by 2030. Kazakhstan’s territory is a key transit zone along the TITR.
The Central Asian state has also been diversifying its oil export routes in order to reduce reliance on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). The CPC pipeline, which accounts for 70%-80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports, terminates at the Russian port of Novorossiysk. This caused disruptions to Kazakh oil exports in 2022 and 2023, prompting the country to seek alternative export routes. Kazakhstan’s Energy Minister, Almasadam Satkaliyev, stated that the country's oil exports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline terminating in Turkey could surge from the present 1.5mn tpy to 20mn tpy. However, this possibility seems unlikely because Azerbaijan has said that it could only accommodate 2.2mn tpy of Kazakhstan's oil due to its high sulphur content.
Kazakhstan's state-owned oil company, KazMunayGas (KMG), has announced plans to increase oil supplies to Germany by an additional 100,000-150,000 tonnes by the end of 2024. The expansion is set to follow the delivery of 1.2mn tonnes of oil to Germany through the Druzhba pipeline in January-October. Kazakhstan’s oil supplies to Germany are projected to reach 2.5mn tonnes in 2025.
Discussions around Rosneft’s stake in PCK Raffinerie, located in Schwedt, Germany, gained traction in late 2023, with KMG identified as a potential buyer. The topic of Rosneft potentially selling its stake to Kazakhstan was revisited during Putin’s visit to Kazakhstan in November 2024. This may potentially influence Kazakhstan’s oil exports to Schwedt going forward.
4.0 Real Economy
4.1 Retail
Retail sales for January-November 2024 amounted to KZT19,486bn, marking a gain of 9.3% y/y. Retail sales are likely to continue growing in 2025, if inflation continues to decelerate and the economy continues to expand. More specifically, retail sales in the past few years may have been surging partly thanks to buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) schemes offered by multiple Kazakh fintech firms, including Kaspi.kz, which leads the market on BNPL offers.
The National Payments Corporation of Kazakhstan (NPCK) said in its Fintech Report 2024 that BNPLs may account for 50% of consumer loans in the
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